Kurz en Route to Win in Austrian Elections

The Austrians are going to the polls this Sunday with major support in opinion polls granted to the traditional conservative democratic party. There is nothing shocking about this. People vote for traditional parties elsewhere. 

The thing about Austrian elections is that the leader of the most likely winner, the Austrian People’s party (ÖVP) is only 31 years old. His name is Sebastian Kurz and he is Austrian foreign affairs secretary since 2013. In December 2013, when official Kurz became foreign affairs secretary he was the youngest government minister since Austria became republic and the youngest foreign minister in the European Union and the rest of the world.

Similarly to France, in Austria the public sympathy goes to relatively young public representative in hope for real change in post-economic crisis environment.

Austrian People’s party led by Kurz is leading the opinion polls with 33%. In combination with far-right  Freedom party (FPÖ) with 27% in opinion polls Kurz can easily form  the government although he might prefer reformist partner. With the Social Democratic party (SPÖ) expected to gain about 20%, coalition with Freedom party looks increasingly appealing. 

Although current FPÖ is not as extreme as back in 2000 when led by controversial Jörg Haider, it still keeps some of its extremist views like not supporting an outright in-out EU referendum.

Should traditional right-wing party in Austria form coalition with far-right FPÖ, the camp of anti-EU countries within EU is likely to expand complementing already EU hostile Poland and Hungary.